Translational Software recently became the latest in a growing number of health IT vendors creating systems to advance precision medicine with its debut of its PGx pediatric platform. Another precision medicine player stepped into the market on Thursday with a product designed to be integrated smack dab in the middle of a physician’s clinical workflow. 2bPrecise, a cloud-based precision medicine platform vendor and an Allscripts company, launched a pharmacogenomics (PGx) system to bring crucial data to the clinical workflow. 

A number of vendors have made moves in recent week. CureMatch announced its precision medicine system bested doctors at determining personalized cancer treatments. Neurotrack built a system that uses eye-tracking technology to predict and help prevent the development of Alzheimer’s. And Intermountain Precision Genomics is working with 10x Genomics to bring personalized medicine from the lab into clinical practice.

[Also: Precision medicine clinical decision support system bests oncologists at picking cancer treatment]

As more of these precision medicine tools come to market, the role of healthcare CIOs in precision medicine will gain prominence as these tools must be integrated into the clinical workflows of healthcare organizations.

2bPrecise PGx, for its part, makes pharmacogenetic information accessible so physicians can make better informed treatment decisions based on a patient’s unique genetic makeup.

2bPrecise has partnered with Translational Software, a genomic data-based clinical decision support system vendor, to leverage its knowledge base of PGx content.

The 2bPrecise PGx system plugs into an EHR’s native workflow and can integrate content from Translational Software and other knowledge sources to enable precision medicine-based decision making at the point of care. 2bPrecise’s PGx system is part of its larger precision medicine platform, built to capture and store genomic data from a range of sources, enabling the harmonization of clinical knowledge and genomic research to extract patient-specific insights.

[Also: Translational Software, Vantari Genetics partner for Alzheimer's precision medicine]

“As medicine becomes increasingly personalized, providers are turning to pharmacogenomics as a powerful first step into precision medicine to improve treatment effectiveness,” said Bob Robke, vice president of 2bPrecise. “Our PGx solution changes the paradigm by focusing on the provider workflow and the delivery of knowledge to the point of care.”

The National Institutes of Health reports that adverse drug events result in more than 770,000 injuries and deaths every year. This highlights the important role precision medicine potentially can play in individualizing medication therapy.

On another front in the integration of medication information into the clinical workflow, Surescripts, six EHR vendors, CVS Health and Express Scripts recently unveiled a joint effort to deliver information about prescription benefits and pricing to clinicians at the point of care.

The goal here is by enabling prescribers to see a specific patient’s insurance coverage and how much a given drug will cost, this will boost shared decision making among doctors and patients. Further, Surescripts said prior authorization can be handled within the EHR workflow and the prescription sent to the pharmacy.

EHR vendors Allscripts, Cerner, GE, Epic, Practice Fusion and Aprima will integrate this benefit and price information and suggest therapeutic alternatives when appropriate.

The participants in this joint effort conducted a yearlong pilot that generated 3.75 million transactions in which benefits and pricing data was delivered to prescribers, the companies said. The participants have committed to delivering this service, which incorporates Surescripts Real-Time Prescription Benefit, Prior Authorization and e-Prescribing technologies, by 2018.

Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer: bill.siwicki@himssmedia.com